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Underwater Exploring Is Banned in Brazil (1985)
- Entalpi 7y agoDoes anyone have an more sources that mention Romans in other parts of the world?
- nextos 7y agoThe Romans visited the Canary Islands. This is well known and acknowledged by mainstream History. The Canary Islands are a great stop en route to America. In fact, that's the one Columbus used.
- gruez 7y ago>The Canary Islands are a great stop en route to America. In fact, that's the one Columbus used. If you're implying that should be used as evidence supporting romans having explored north america, that's really a stretch. Looking at a map, the canary islands are close to the roman empire's territory and the romans could have been there for plenty of reasons besides going to north america. see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Islas_Canarias_(real_location)_in_Spain.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Islas_Canarias_(real_loca... and https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/00/Roman_Empire_Trajan_117AD.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/00/Roman_Em...
- nextos 7y agoI have not implied it can be used as evidence.
- scribu 7y agoWikipedia has pretty good overviews: Americas: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Columbian_trans-oceanic_contact_theories#Claims_involving_ancient_Roman_contact https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Columbian_trans-oceanic_... Asia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Roman_relations https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Roman_relations
- jdmoreira 7y agoI'm Portuguese so take my opinion with a grain of salt. Did the Romans really have the tech to cross the Atlantic? I mean... it's though job! We know Roman history very very well and no where in their records is this mentioned? Sounds very weird to me.
- all2 7y agoI'm guessing if they wrecked off of Brazil, they never made it back to Roman territory. There are stories of Japanese and Chinese fishing boats washing up in what is now Washington and California, so I definitely think it's possible.
- IntegrationDude 7y agoIts not that hard to cross over to brasil from iberia/morocco. I wouldn't be too surprised if a handful of roman ships were blown vastly off course and wound up in south america. Coming back is a different story though, you'll be fighting winds most of the way unless you go the long way around, and i doubt whatever roman ships made the crossing would be able to come back.
- reaperducer 7y agoI'm not sure how much tech you need. More like planning and luck. Think about the vast ocean distances the Polynesian people covered, and it's my understanding that their level of technology was less than the Romans. Though I'm not really knowledgeable in that area.
- HeyLaughingBoy 7y agoThey were damn good navigators though. The level of technology of their boats were in some ways vastly superior to the Europeans who traveled to the South Pacific. Remember that "technology" isn't a generic "I'm better at it than you are" kind of thing. Different societies have different levels of technology depending on what their needs are. Polynesians needed to cross enormous distances, so they were well developed in that area.
- colechristensen 7y ago
- fabioyy 7y agowhats is more likely? one diver selling gold coins, or a huge conspiracy of >500 years
- JumpCrisscross 7y ago> a huge conspiracy of >500 years From the diver’s account, the wreck wasn’t noticed until the modern era. No need for multi-century conspiracies. That said, yes, it seems more likely he made this up, given his looting of the antiquities.
- based2 7y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Columbian_trans-oceanic_contact_theories#Claims_involving_ancient_Roman_contact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Columbian_trans-oceanic_co...
- alganet 7y agoThe Romans were not good ship builders. I'm skeptic.
- adolph 7y agoThat’s quite an assertion about a culture. As counterpoints: 1. The Romans were clearly quite mobile around the Med; 2. The Nemi ships https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemi_ships https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemi_ships
- alganet 7y agoThe mediterranean is very calm, there's no way to compare that with crossing an ocean. Romans had trouble even to get into Britain (Ceasar almost died there in two failed expeditions). I should have phrased in another way as you said, though. It was not a fair assertion.
- freeflight 7y agoI'm not sure comparing those two is really that useful. Wouldn't a large scale military invasion have vastly higher logistical requirements than sending out a purely exploratory party? Afaik many Roman soldiers were also quite wary of going to Britain, a land they considered even more foreign and savage than Germania, which probably added to the Roman struggle of gaining any foothold.
- mr_toad 7y ago> Nemi ships A large flat bottomed oared “ship” (more of a barge really) is the last thing you’d want to try crossing the Atlantic in.
- jdietrich 7y agoYou don't need to be a good ship builder to cross the Atlantic. Thanks to the North Equatorial Current, you can launch almost any buoyant object off the West African coast and it'll wash up somewhere on the east coast of the American continent. You don't need sails, you don't need oars, you don't even need a tiller; you just need buoyancy, enough fresh water to survive the trip and the knowledge that the current exists. The Atlantic has been crossed on an array of utterly unsuitable craft including rafts, survival capsules and inflatable dinghies; an elderly French man is currently attempting to cross in a large wine barrel. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/frenchman-jean-jacques-savin-adrift-in-barrel-hopes-for-land-on-horizon-after-100-days-mjxqwsdf0 https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/frenchman-jean-jacques-sa...
- cryptokernel 7y agoIf exploring results to ecosystem destruction, why not? Just leaving this here: Do Tasks, Get Paid: https://coincircle.com/l/50VVxbObg3 https://coincircle.com/l/50VVxbObg3
- Dravidian 7y agoGovernments at odds with archeology to protect the origin story of the country is common across the world. In India, as recent as latter part of this decade archeologists found gold mine of evidence for >2100 year old Tamil civilization at Keezhadi including Roman artifacts[0]. There was no evidence of Hinduism found, for the matter of fact no religious artifacts of known organised religions was found there. The archeologist who made the discovery was transferred and the excavations was halted. Fortunately, Tamil civilization is still very much in existence in the state of Tamilnadu,India; so the matter was taken to court and the court has now ordered continuation of excavation at Keezhadi & ordered the original archeologist back to the site[1]. But there has been numerous hurdles since, a blatant obstruction by the central government. India is a culmination of several such civilizations, but the ruling party wants to project India as a 'Hindu Nation' which magically originated before any other civilization in the world. Unfortunately, they have the popular support for obvious reasons (You'll likely witness in the comments ). Wiki[2]. [0]: https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/chennai/keezhadi-hitting-pay-dirt-and-controversy/article19779268.ece https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/chennai/keezhadi-hittin... [1]: https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/keezhadi-excavations-hc-orders-transfer-asi-officer-amarnath-ramakrishna-tn-98413 https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/keezhadi-excavations-h... [2]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keeladi https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keeladi
- modi15 7y agoYou should try posting all this with a different username. It costs you credibility as it insinuates an agenda and its something you can ill afford for this conspiracy theory to gain mileage.
- bkmeneguello 7y agoI'm Brazilian so take my opinion with a bit o salt and pepper. I have no doubts our government circa 1985 was totally capable of such things. It was a military government, with lots of censorship (but 85 was they last days). So anything that could raise any question about our national identity was a threat for them. About the feasibility of atlantic crossings from west to east, mainly by odd, it's perfectly possible. The travel back otherwise is another history. Probably they mixed with our native inhabitants and they genes disappeared with the time (and with the arrival of portuguese in 1500). Even today, to question Brazilians national identity is tabu here.
- alganet 7y agoI can see the 85 government willing to do that (I'm brazillian as well). I doubt the Romans would arrive here though. They were not navy focused at all. There are detailed accounts of all sorts of trouble they went just to cross to Britain. At the same time, we had plenty of pre-culumbian tribes here who were masters at pottery (like the Marajoara culture). These are probably pottery jars from one of these cultures. I found funny what you said about this being a tabu. I don't feel that at all here in Brazil. On the contrary. Brazillians I know acknowledge the Pedra Furada site, for example, but most other countries ignore it, specially the US with their Clover first narrative.
- gcb0 7y ago> I found funny what you said about this being a tabu. I don't feel that at all here in Brazil. On the contrary. Brazillians I know acknowledge [...] do not mix up the current Brazil with the Brazil from a few years ago. under the worker's party Brazil had great recognition of native cultures and new museums. under the current, elected under a parliament coup (the preferred left candidate just left political prison last week, after a year without trial), all that is gone, and the biggest two museums with Indian artifacts burned to the ground in under three months, one barely showing in the midia.... so go figure. > I can see the 85 government willing to do that the current government has a general as vice president (and the president is a failed military career turned professional politician), and everyone in the education ministry are career military, just like the 60s. I find it odd that you can see the problem clearly on the previous coup but not on this one.
- empath75 7y agoI’d think most countries would be happy to claim a connection to Rome.
- HeyLaughingBoy 7y agoWhy?
- yongjik 7y ago> The Brazilian Navy has (...) in turn charged Mr. Marx with ''contraband'' of objects recovered from other wrecks in this country. (...) the Brazilian officials showed a catalogue of an auction held in Amsterdam in 1983 in which, they said, gold coins, instruments and artifacts removed from shipwrecks in Brazil were offered for sale on behalf of Mr. Marx and his associates. > Several attempts to give Mr. Marx the opportunity to respond to these charges were unsuccessful. One phone call ended abruptly when Mr Marx said, ''Don't bother me,'' and then hung up. I have to side with the Brazilian government here, not because I think they're right (I don't know) but because their action will lead to the least harm. If Marx is right, and Brazil has its say, then the worst that can happen is that an archeological site will be buried in a known location for several decades until someone else will give another try. If Brazil is right, and Marx has his say, then the worst that can happen is that an irreplaceable archeological site will be plundered in haste with 20th century technology (which is, let's admit, not that great in digging up underwater ruins without destroying them), forever losing an opportunity to learn more about ancient Romans who made it to Brazil. Not all wonders have to be excavated in our own generation.
- rossenberg79 7y agoI just purchased an OpenROV Trident. The idea of the world’s oceans now being closed up and tightly regulated just as deep exploration becomes viable for the masses has me sad.
- SCAQTony 7y agoIt's hard to believe that a stern mounted oar-rudder would be a viable steering mechanism to make a 5,700 nautical mile trip from Rome to Rio de Janeiro especially since the "New World" is 1,000 miles closer. Europe had to wait until the Renaissance to get its rudder technology more robust. The Brazillian law was probably a forward-thinking act to protect antiquities from leaving the country in the event there were underwater artifacts.
- tim333 7y agohttps://www2.rgzm.de/Navis/Ships/Ship118/Image/118F3005.jpg https://www2.rgzm.de/Navis/Ships/Ship118/Image/118F3005.jpg Photo of a reconstructed Roman rudder. Doesn't look so bad?
- SCAQTony 7y agoThank you for the photo; this is the best one I have seen. I suspect the ropes could not secure each of those rudders in place for a transatlantic crossing even in moderate seas.
- kdtop 7y agoHas anyone been able to find if there is any further progress on this site in the decades that have since passed after this article was published?
- nonbel 7y agoSomeone on quora said they recently began trying to look again: >"Sir Robert Marx and I are now in the process of reinitiating the research we began in 1983 on this location where we found 3rd century Roman amphora. A sub-bottom profile scan by Doc Harold Edgerton identified a large non-natural object deep in the sediment, below the place we found the amphora. We believe that this is in fact a Roman wreck and are out to scientifically prove it. #jameslynchexplorer" https://www.quora.com/Is-it-true-that-a-Roman-galley-was-found-sunk-off-the-coast-of-Brazil/answer/James-Lynch-128 https://www.quora.com/Is-it-true-that-a-Roman-galley-was-fou...
- mothsonasloth 7y agoIf the theories about Norsemen crossing to North America are true, then I don't see it being too farfetched that the Romans could have done it too.
- wavefunction 7y agoRomans didn't possess longboats which were capable of sea travel as well as riverine navigation. Romans stuck to coastal waters.
- leandrod 7y agoThis is beyond ridiculous. I was already 14 in 1985, and coming from a quite politicised family I already read newspapers, both for our momentous point in History at the time, and for the Cold War (glad we won that). Even if the military government did try to boost our national pride with History that, given what we still know, does necessarily begin with Cabral — previous landings were inconsequential — there is no way they would not be happy to claim a Roman connection. If there is anything to Marx’s claims, it would be because he was (seen as) a plunderer. Anyway, the military government finished in March, and then we had a populist, centre-right government who could not care less for History.
- borgatronics 7y agohow is this hacker news worthy ?
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- Iemanja 7y agoIf you take the "barca" from praca 15 to the Island of Paqueta, where I grew up, learn to swim, and at age 6 read my first books, I remember Jonnathan Livingstone Seagull , The crime genius, Tistu the green finger boy, Mamae nao pode saber, E proibido chorar, The little prince... So when you take the barca and cross the Guanabara Bay, its like when you take the ferry train to cross from Hamburg to Copenhagen, and see the light generating crazy windmills, but is Dolphins who swimm and jump together with the barca going the same way to the Island of Paqueta I remember when I was in Denmark, I stay at the home of a friend family in a farm, so beautiful, they are very nice and very knowledgeable, and the old father takes me to the woods to look for deers, and we were there in silence in the woods and I hear a sound in the leaves, and say something, and the old man says "there" and we see Then we walk back to the wooden house, and on the way I say You have good eyes And the father says You have good years I love denmark and my family of friends